Ty Mangum™: October 2012

warning, fairly liberal use of personal opinions

Let me make one thing clear: I hate religion. I hate having conversations about it. I hate how confident billions of people in the world are about how their God is 100% the correct one, and that everyone else is wrong. I hate that if you make a joke about it, people get offended. I hate how people use religion as a justification for their own actions. I hate how one of the candidates for the Presidency of the most powerful country in world believes that he will get his own planet after he dies (that's not a joke). But above all, I hate how religions deny factual evidence of anything in (relatively) recent discoveries just because it clashes with their beliefs.

Religion, more than anything, is a topic that annoys me to no end, and I've lived the recent years of my life avoiding talking about it whenever possible. Well, I should say I did avoid talking about it, until I found myself in a rather unique scenario after having a conversation with my dad on the phone about a month ago. The conversation went as follows

"Man, do I have a crazy story for you" My Dad tells me just seconds after I got out of bed
"What's up pops?" I replied
"So there's this conference next month with Richard Dawkins, and this group I'm a member of (the FFRF) is trying to promote their national conference."
"That's great pops..."
"No no, it gets better. So they need models for their billboards to promote their conference, and since I'm a member, I got a request. I didn't really want to do it, so I forwarded it to your brother (Brent). He replied, and they told him to come up for a photo shoot for this Weekend!"
"What the shit?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what do they think about having a pair of brothers on that billboard"
"I don't know" replied my dad "But you should ask them"

And ask them I did. Well, my brother actually asked, but I was told to come up to Portland to join in on the shoot.

We went to the shoot up in NW Portland at some guys apartment. Upon seeing the door that labeled "FFRF," indicating that we were in the right place, I kind of wanted to leave.

It's a trap

I told my brother that this looked like a prime location for a double homicide. Nonetheless, we still entered (although I went in a few feet behind him). Steve Etling was the photographer, He was very professional, with thousands of thousands of dollars in camera equipment and a studio in his garage.

We spent maybe 2 minutes with goofy pictures and poses, a few minutes of smiling pictures, then signed a waiver and that was that.

It's been nearly a month since the photo shoot occurred, and we were told that we'd made it on a billboard. Finally, it was put up yesterday (10.10.12) at the corner of Mcglaughin and Blue Bird, in the SE Portland area.

And now we wait. Although I'm not quite sure what I'm waiting for. I don't think I'll get any criticisms or scorn from my friends or peers... I would be very surprised if I did... but I will continue to wait.

If I may quote a personal favorite of mine: "I got a poster!!!"

Let me prepose a hypothetical situation for you:

You are given $330 for doing nothing

You must split that money with Dan Mahoney

What would you do?

As bizzarre as this may sound, this is exactly the situation that has developed over the past year. Dan and I made a YouTube video in 2011 (biking downhill at 60mph), which has accrued $330 and ~250,000 views. We've agreed to split the money, to which we decided to allocate it to something we both thoroughly enjoy. No, we didn't decide to spend it on prostitutes. Or bicycles. Or not even prostitutes on bicycles. Rather we decided to take the money to Stanford University to enjoy all that is our favorite collegiate sport: Volleyball. The #2 ranked Ducks were to play the #7 ranked Cardinal on Friday (10/5/12), and we wanted to be at this game. The plan was simple; use our hard earned YouTube dough to cover gas to Stanford, a 550 mile (9 hour) drive, while staying with Dan's college friend, Mr. Nick Haber for the weekend.

We left Thursday at 4 pm after Dan decided that teaching his 200 level econ class was more important than leaving Eugene at a respectable time (note that he could have got a substitute to fill in for him, but just decided that he probably shouldn't without any real justification as to why). The drive was mundane, long, dark and rather sketchy at some construction sites, but we arrived safely on Stanford's campus at 1:15 am Friday morning.

Nick's Grad school dorm provided a cozy home stay for the weekend

Friday became a day of relaxation and exploration. While Nick had to get some work done, Dan and I were left to wander around campus; something I thought we have been training for for the past year or so. I would consider Dan and I expert wanderers, but I have never seen anything like Stanford's Campus in my life. The distance that campus covered was unfathomable (it's actually very fathomable at ~13 sq miles), but it felt enormous compared to the UO's 0.46 sq miles. Buildings were new, students were ethnically diverse, and everyone was on bicycles. It really is quite amazing, and Dan and I only covered a fraction of it in our wandering escapade.

Although wandering, coffee, and lunch were exciting, they were merely a way to kill the time until the volleyball game Friday night. Erich, (a triathlon friend of mine from Eugene who currently resides in Santa Clara), Nick, Dan, Amy (another friend of Dan's) and I went to the game with with the hopes of a good game. Sure, a win would be awesome, but with news of the team being sick, we just were hoping they would play well.

Of course, I couldn't travel 550 miles without having a sign for my favorite player. I held the sign with as much pride as the guys down in the Castro District have in San Francisco, and it got a big smile out of the players during pre-game.

Unfortunately, the Ducks lost the game in a 5 set thriller, but still an overall fun game and awesome to see us play away from home.

Although the Ducks had lost, our weekend adventure certainly did not end there. After all, this was my first time in San Francisco area, and I wanted the full experience; Saturday was sure to provide me with plenty of it.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world, and I needed a picture in front of it. Although we couldn't find parking directly near the bridge, we went to Baker Beach to see all sorts of great sights. Our primary interest was taking pictures of the bridge, but so many other things that had been erected a long time ago were in also in the area; copious amounts of old men on the beach decided that clothes were optional rather than mandatory. Now, I'm all for optional clothing, but two 50+ year old men giving each other the "gentleman's handshake" on the beach was certainly something I didn't need to see. However, I did ask for the SF experience, and old guys tanning with their dicks hanging out sure was fitting the SF stereotype. In one particular man's case (a Chinese Tourist taking pictures of the bridge), the guy lost his shoes to the tide of the water, when he immediately decided to de-robe and dive in after them.

The man splashed himself with the cold ocean water for approximately 5 minutes, psyching himself up before taking the dive in the water to retrieve his shoes. Meanwhile, a local naked old guy decided to help out our Chinese friend by swiftly getting in the water to retrieve the shoes. Both naked men rejoiced, and the Chinese man couldn't have been more thankful. It truly was a sight to see, and they both posed for a photo for the Chinese man's friend. I can only imagine how shrivled they must have been, and I bet the Chinese man will try to explain to all of his friends about how cold the water was.

The two men posing together

But no, San Francisco had a lot more to offer than naked men and the Golden Gate Bridge. Nick, Dan and I continued to The Mission, a kind of crazy hectic side of town with great food and quite a bit of hipsters. This part of town was most similar to SE Portland, only much more dense. We overate on an amazing Mexican lunch, and continued on to explore more.

Mexican food came with a complimentary family Mariachi Band

Our next stop was Doleres Park; a seemingly endless supply of hipsters came around from every direction. Dan was visibly disturbed, as these people were the exact opposite the type of people that Dan can tolerate. Watching Dan in Doleres park was like watching a dog try to cower away from fireworks on the 4th of July, but really he had no where to run.

The view from the park. You can see a few local natives to the right of the photo.

Sensing that Dan was uncomfortable, I knew exactly where to go to lighten his spirits: the gayest part of town (The Castro).

We walked up and down a few blocks, and man was it gay. If there's anything in the city of SF that I wish for others to replicate, it's their openness and appreciation of the gay community. It was awesome to see every type of minority not give a care in the world about what others thought of their sexuality. And man oh man, were these people gay. Not only were they gay, they were actively trying to fit the stereotype of what a flamboyantly gay male should look like. There were ripped guys, there were shiny guys, there were suave guys, there were guys in matching suits, and hell, there were even more old naked guys. I wanted the full SF experience, and by the time I left the Castro, I feel like I got it.

After some great dessert, we left the city on high spirits. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, had amazing food, blended in with the hipsters, and saw the most flamboyantly fabulous gay men I have ever seen in my life. Overall, Saturday was a great day.

With our adventurous weekend over, Sunday was used primarily to drive us back to town. Below are a few random photos from the trip.